View full sizeHere's a rendering of the new Fairhopers Community Park playground equipment. The City Council approved a bid of $378,870 on Thursday, March 6, 2014, to renovate the park. (Courtesy Justin Vance/Champion Recreation)

FAIRHOPE, Alabama -- Come summer, Fairhopers Community Park is expected to be a new-and-improved recreational haven for children and their families as more than $400,000 in renovations will add a splash pad, rope playground and other new equipment.

On Thursday, the City Council approved a $378,870 low bid from Nashville-based Kid Zone Play Systems to construct the park, designed by Walcott Adams Verneuille Architects of Fairhope.

“It’s going to be great,” Mayor Tim Kant said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

View full sizeA rendering of the new Fairhopers Community Park was on display during a Fairhope work session on Thursday, March 6, 2014. The City Council approved a bid of $378,870 on Thursday night to renovate the park. (Marc D. Anderson/manderson@al.com)

“The core of the park design isn’t changing from what we had some 20 years ago,” Adams said. “It’s staying the same.”

What’s changing is all the playground equipment inside the two-acre downtown park on the corner of Church Street and Morphy Avenue.

The current large wooden, bridge-based playground area dedicated to 5- to 12-year-olds and a smaller area for toddlers will be removed and replaced with modern equipment that provide a clear sight line for parents and handicapped accessible areas.

The playground will have a nautical theme with some equipment shaped like boats and sails accenting some areas.

“This is a modern playground where the mom doesn’t lose sight of the child,” Adams said. “We can see through this. It’s a safer environment from that aspect. Obviously, the materials with some lifetime warranties, amazing warranties for labor and materials ... the maintenance will be less.”

View full sizeHere's a rendering of the new Fairhopers Community Park playground equipment. The City Council approved a bid of $378,870 on Thursday, March 6, 2014, to renovate the park. (Courtesy Justin Vance/Champion Recreation)

Traditional equipment such as monkey bars and swings are included in the design along with new features such as a rope sphere, a walkway lined with musical instruments and a 2,200-square-foot splash pad. The new water area will replace the currently underused teen area near the corner of Church and Morphy.

The large green space will remain intact as well as all of the healthy trees in the park. The current mulch base of the park will be replaced with blue rubber padding except for the rope sphere, which will still have mulch.

Sherry Sullivan, the city’s director of community affairs, said pieces of the existing park will be removed starting March 17 and the area will be closed to the public. Construction is expected to take place in April, starting with a groundbreaking, and work will continue into May with an early June reopening likely.

Not all of the original park will be removed as the existing tile handprint walls will remain along with the dinosaur and hand-eagle sculptures, Sullivan said. Existing artwork and wood carving depicting the city’s history and founders, among other things, are expected to be repurposed and placed on a eastern wall of the new park.

“We are soliciting to the community to come forward and help repurpose the art that’s already there,” Sullivan said.

The existing gazebo will be relocated from the center of the park to the south end by the new splash pad, and a new 16-by-32-foot pavilion will be constructed along the west side near Church Street. The pavilion will be a separate project and is expected to cost about $33,000.

“I just want to say thank you, council,” the mayor said before Thursday’s unanimous vote, “because now we’ll have a facility that’s for all the children of Fairhope.”